A liquid crystal display generally comprises a polarizing plate and a liquid crystal cell.
Since the liquid crystal display has a narrow viewing angle, it has been proposed to use an optical compensatory sheet for enlarging the viewing angle (for example, in Japanese Patent provisional Publication Nos. 4(1992)-229828, 4(1992)-258923, 6(1994)-75116, 6(1994)-174920 and 6(1994)-222213).
A TFT liquid crystal display of TN mode (which is nowadays mainly used) is equipped with an optical compensatory sheet comprising a support and a thereon-provided optically anisotropic layer formed from liquid crystal compound. The optical compensatory sheet is placed between the polarizing plate and the liquid crystal cell, to optically compensate the viewing angle dependence of; the cell so that the quality of displayed image may be improved. That compensatory sheet is described in, for example, 8(1996)-50206.
Also, a wide-viewing angle polarizing plate comprising a birefringencial layer as a protective film is proposed to prevent the plate itself from leaking light when obliquely seen. That plate is described in, for example, 10(1998)-48420.